Darren's posts with tag: kp3
|  | PIANA [Japan] Live in Singapore 2007 Opening Acts by Aspidistra Fly and Sonicbrat...
Fabulous lighting design by our good friend Lim Woan Wen!!!
Photos of my set taken by The Asylum... :) |
 Yesterday I had creative block. But today my muse had returned. I did not give much thoughts to this piece... just hit the on button, find some sounds, visit my favourite wurly e-piano sounds on the Radias, hit record with the metronome and build track by track... was a brisk... Here's DAY 12 entry on COMMONTONES:
<<再造>>
"Reconstruction"
Gears: KORG Radias, KORG Kaoss Pad III, Humbucker, Reaktor 5, faulty connections; old vocal samples I've recorded.Today I saw time Coincidentally I was reading Einstein's Dreams I revisited a certain time While sitting in the train cabin reading I love how fate turns and twists around And we are merely pawns of this acoursal palette I saw someone see me in my beads reading Freud And I was non the wiser till now I am so very grateful Today I saw a couple quarelling in public I wonder why the hassle, why bother
 I guess I am dried up already... 11th day, and I am stuck... I actually did 3 reditions... first one didn't sound right, heading no where... dumped... second rendition was crap... dumped... finally settling for this ambient-ish one. Not ace, as I hoped it to be :S but time ran out and I'll have to post so no looking back... bad mix though :( I wish I had more time for this one... So here's DAY 11 of COMMONTONES: <<棉花糖>>
"Nuages de Sucrerie de Coton"Using the KORG Radias again, recorded loop on KP3... added the guitar drone in post... and a little Plogue Bidule synthesis... Picture of my favourite tree at TFP again... lovely healthy leaves...
 This is the entry for DAY 10 on COMMONTONES:
<<夜班車>> "Le Tour de Nuit"
Gears used:
KORG Radias, KORG Kaoss Pad IIIYep, entire track done on the Radias with minimal sound design to enhance the mood of the song, to paint the picture. Building on the simple motive of my previous composition in commontones, I wanted to see if I can re-arrange it using the Radias. This is the first time I am using the Radias seriously. I am beginning to love this synth more. Nothing was sequenced except the drums, which was a pattern which I've recorded and processed heavily. This track was recorded while playing live. A couple of hours was all I had so this was the best I could do.
| | These are pictures taken whilst I compose and design for the play "Everything But The Brain" for Action Theatre. Now showing at the Esplanade Theatre. Here's the demo of three songs which I've picked out to upload (click on the title of the songs to listen):
EVER AFTER
This track, by approach was really simple. I mic'ed up a Hungarian Zither (CITERA) using a contact microphone and it's being fed into the KORG Radias audio in. Using a vocoder preset, I have made it to trigger a synth note (D flat) with a moderate attack and a long release. So everytime I plug a note, it will trigger the synth note. The signal is also routed through it's internal effects with delay and reverb. Another contact microphone was employed to sample the Citera with a BOSS RC-20 and the playback is reversed... This track was recorded live with me improvising on the Citera. (I have no idea how to play it so I just did what I think sound right) You can find a picture of the Citera below...
BEDTIME STORIES
A Plogue Bidule composition using a patch I've designed. The group has a couple of sequencers that triggers the risset bells and sine tones, which was passed through a rebuilder and some effects. Crytal Synths were employed for the generation of the glassy ambient. KORG Radias was used for a base drone...
EINSTEIN'S BRAIN
An abstract of the 10 minute long piece. The piano was from KORG Triton ST88. An improvisation based on the scenic mood was recorded and then reversed and picthed down to underlay the original recording. Another Plogue Bidule patch was designed to sound scape subtley underneath this track...
DISCLAIMER: There are pictures of other synths which was employed for the composition and design of other songs and sounds but I did not include the demo here... It's sad to see the way they treated my music in production... director's call, so what to do :/ |
| | THE VOTING HAS STARTED! Yes, voting will run till this Tuesday 12pm our time here in Singapore. I have provided the voting link so if you like what you hear here, do vote for me :D. THANKS! Stiff competition!
Okies, so here are the entries I submitted into the Cyndustries BUG OFF! aleatoric music contest:
d-DAY|h-HOUR
mo12seCODE
The theme of the contest is "WAR & PEACE"and we are suppose to use any kind of synthesis be it software or hardware based, digital or analogue. If you like it do go HERE to vote for me as your top three picks. Look for the titles. I will be really grateful! :P
NOTE: No looped samples were used and they are all original creations, played live, sequenced or programmed. No matter how aleatoric it is supposed to be, it can still fall under a familiar format of music. There are more aleatoric elements in mo12seCODE than d-DAY|h-HOUR. The random bleeps and glitches of the oscillating and filtering Sherman Filterbank II and also alot of "chance" music involved in this piece (eg. the transistor radio reacting with the MF105, etc). For d-DAY|h-HOUR, it's set to a more typical music track with the filtering algorithms random on the arpeggiating synths. Just because it says aleatorical doesn't mean it must sound weird and out of this world in my opinion.
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This album was taken post of recording the tracks. Here's the description of each piece:
d-DAY|h-HOUR
GEARS:KORG Triton ST88, KORG EM-1, KORG KP3, Sherman Filterbank II, MOOG MF105 Murf, MOOG Etherwave Theremin and ROLAND SH101.
DESCRIPTION: No software synthesis were used except for general effects during mixdown. Majority of the synthesis was from KORG Triton and composed on the fly. Drums were preprogrammed though on the EM1. The piano is from Triton and it was improvised on the spot. Not sequenced.
CONCEPT: I was pondering about war and peace and thought they are pretty dichotomous. The existence of one entails the existence of another. The meaning of peace would not be possible without the precedence of war or vice versa. Inspired by this notion, d-DAY|h-HOUR depicts the attack that ends war... with that, peace entails, but at much cost. Like my other entry, this song was cut in a about 4 hours. Hope you'll enjoy it. Cheers...
mo12seCODE
GEARS: Alesis ION, KORG EM-1, KORG KP3, KORG Triton ST88, Sherman Filterbank II, MOOG MF105 Murf and a small handhelf transistor radio.
DESCRIPTION: Composed and mixed on the fly with general effects passed post. Again this was done in about 4 hours as well. Special Notes: The Sherman Filterbank II was used as a self oscillating modular instead of processing sounds... it was patched for feedbacking itself. The transistor radio was used for creating the sweeping sounds (like wind)... achieved by feeding through MF105. Reaktor 5 was used for some sound designs as well as a simple drum sequence. Most drum sounds from EM1. Gun sounds were designed on Triton.
CONCEPT: "Morse code is the only digital modulation mode designed to be easily read by humans without a computer, making it appropriate for sending automated digital data in voice channels, as well as making it ideal for emergency signaling..." This piece is a stipulation of morse codes being sent amongst artificial intelligence during wars in the future... Resulting in a cacophony of electronic communication. Inspired by visuals of actual morse codes, I've derived patterns from some to enter it as sequenced patterns, repeating them and countering them against each other... and the outcome is rather musical, naturally...
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PHOTO DESCRIPTION
Well, these were taken during the session. The first few LED displays are from the Sherman Filterbank II. Playing around with movements and it's actually quite magical in my opinion. The rest are just straight forward gear slutting.
OUT
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Quite crap actually. This is my first attempt at video-making, from the demo I cut from my previous post SyNtH MaNtRa II. Amateurish stuff. Visual highlights shots from KORG EM1 and KORG KP3. Here's the original video on YoutubeThe song was cut from KORG EM1, KORG Prophecy, KORG KP3, BOSS VF-1 multi-effects processor and Moogerfooger MF105 MurF. For more shots of the session do visit HERE. Pretty lame but it's just out of pure fun.
| | "Cocktail-Patry Effect is the ability of the human ear to perceive a distinctive sound out of a collage of sounds. The ability to filter out a single sound from a collective of sounds. Sounds which are masked by a myriad of noised can be perceivable by the human ear through the exercise of this effect."
Audio Demo: | SyNtH MaNtRa II |
Music Concept:
Using the Cocktail Party Effect as a main driving concept, I composed a motive for the set. There are three tracks of micro-melodies playing the same motive at different tempos and in variations covering different frequency bands. Each track will take precedence at different times, sometimes clashing sometimes in sync. The four track is a shakuhachi-like synths that plays a distinctive melody at the beginning. The drum track is pre-programmed and sequenced prior the recording, acting as a base to mask micro-melodies to make them hardly perceivable, forcing one to engage the Cocktail Party Effect in order to make out the micro-melodies that weaved underneath the on-going drum track. With the ideology of Cocktail Party Effect, Synth Mantra II is a multi-tracked improvisation in the world of synths, filters and effects, melting the boundaries between analogue and digital as they fuse.
The song was composed, arranged and improvised on the fly less the sequenced drums. It's then mixed down minimally and with no effects added post. I did this track in about 2 hours so don't expect a professional mix. It's more for fun... my fun :P.
Technical Details:
All the synths sounds are from the KORG Prophecy, through the Moogerfooger MF105 MurF that changes rate of LFO as well as envelope. The Drum, which was pre-programmed and sequenced, is from KORG EM1, through BOSS VF-1 multi-effects processor and then through KORG Koass Pad III running a Grain Filter. The drum sequence was first passed through VF-1 on a violin filter, which resulted in a clicky metallic percussive sound. This was sampled into 3 banks on the KP3 in different variations. These sounds can be heard at the beginning of the track as it's morphed by the grain filter on KP3. During the actual recording, the drums were passed through a stereo vocoder on the VF-1 and then into the KP3 for the graining.
Photo Details:
The song was composed and played in the dark so that I indulge in the right mood. The LEDs really take on full effects in the dark so I took pictures of it after the recording and also with lights on later. The streaking LEDs happened when I took one accidentally because of unstable hands but it turned out pretty interesting. So I began to experiment and also changing camera mode. The result is some stunning LED displays.
UPDATES: Video is not available HERE. Or you can go direct to Youtube to view it. Don't expect too much :D. |
 Stayed up again for reasons of self indulgence... cut a demo using Kaoss Pad 3... here it is: | SyNtHiMoRpHoSiS |"...All is metamorphosis in life, from plants to animals and man, yes, even in the latter," Goethe wrote to Sulpiz Boisseree in 1815... Utilizing emptiness releases the intensity of the introspective experience - "Architecture of Silence" by Tadao Ando. This track was inspired by a research email sent my way via a friend.SyNtHiMoRpHoSiS is an improvisation on the KP3, nothing fanciful and it was composed on the fly... Basically I cut the demo using only KP3 (as a hardware) and nothing else. Recorded 4 tracks onto the sampler section of the KP3 from Little Talks, which is a generative patch I did using Plogue Bidule. With the four tracks of clicky bleepy stuffs done, I used a max/msp patch that generates random frequencies in harmonics input into the KP3 with grain filtering. Recorded the output and improvisation onto multi-track. Then I routed the recorded track back into KP3 for another round of filtering using other presets. Next I used the KP3 drum loops to cut another track and again, routed the recorded track back into KP3 for filtering between a filter preset and two grain presets... I "played" the filtering pattern/procedure on the KP3 rhythmically and recorded it on pad motion. The pad motion was triggered on time to the samples when we get nearer to the rhythmic section. At times it's reversed using the "reverse" function button [shift+pad motion]. I kept it going while "interrupting" the pad motion with new manipulations on the pad... did a quick mix down and mastering... The whole process took about an hour... rather ad-hoc so apologies for the bad mix in the whee hours... It's amazing to taste KP3's immaculate power as i was able, using different filters and effects from KP3, to change generative frequency tones into ambient drones. Again, just trying to see what KP3 can do for me with my limited skills... One special note to take is that there's no extra effects added to the tracks. Hope you'll enjoy the subtle nuances to the harsh and crude manipulation... check out the Photo Gallery for more pictures of KP3.
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